East-West Catholic Dialogue in D.C. (4715)

Orientale Lumen conference tussles over the role of the papacy. Greek Orthodox bishop suggests a Ratzingerian solution.

A roof dome icon in the Rila Monastery, Bulgaria, shows Christ in glory.

– Nickolay Stanev/Shutterstock

WASHINGTON — “Many Orthodox view all bishops as successors to Peter,” Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate said recently, “but most would concede that the bishop of Rome is a successor of Peter in a special way.”

What exactly is that special way? Like others at the Orientale Lumen conference in Washington at which he spoke, Metropolitan Kallistos acknowledged that the papacy is entitled to primacy in some form, but he stopped far short in his willingness to grant it the kind of jurisdictional role the papacy enjoys in the Catholic Church.

Of course, that’s nothing new. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches split in 1054, and attempts to heal the fracture have so far fallen short of the goal. The papacy is central to ongoing dialogue.

Although the Orientale Lumen gathering has no official status in dialogue between Eastern and Western Christianity, it is considered a good gauge of opinion among Eastern Christians in the United States.

“Started in 1997 in Washington, D.C., these ecumenical conferences are a ‘grassroots’ movement among laypersons and clergy to provide a forum for Christians to learn about the ‘light from the East,’” the conference website says. “They allow Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholics and Roman Catholics to meet and pray together, learn from each other’s traditions, and become friends together searching for a common goal: ‘that they all may be one’ in the one Church of Christ.”

This year’s gathering drew laity and clergy to a retreat house near The Catholic University of America and featured talks and various Eastern liturgies. The theme was “Communion of Churches: Bishop, Patriarch or Pope.”

The main stumbling block to unity, most speakers agreed, is the papacy: How far must Eastern Catholics go? Metropolitan Kallistos cited what is called the “Ratzinger Formula,” developed by Pope Benedict XVI while he was still a cardinal, as the key document in reflecting on the papacy.

The Ratzinger Formula states that the Catholic Church “must not require from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy” acceptance of anything that they did not accept in the first millennium, before the Church split in 1054. It also requires Eastern Christians to cease to regard as heretical later developments in Catholicism.

Although Metropolitan Kallistos, who taught Orthodox studies at Oxford, hailed the papacy as a “primacy of humility, service and love,” he maintained that the Eastern Churches had not recognized an immediate jurisdictional authority of Rome during the first millennium. Catholic historians would challenge him on this point.

According to Kallistos, Church officials in the East appealed to Rome to settle disputes during the first millennium. But he argued that they did not necessarily feel bound by Rome’s decisions and that this must be a precedent for limited papal authority if the Churches heal the split. “Is this sufficient [for reunification]?” he asked.

A Change for Rome?

A former professor of Eastern liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, Father Robert Taft — who is both a Jesuit and an archimandrite (the superior of a monastery or of several monasteries, though in Father Taft’s case, it is an honorary title) in the Greek Catholic Church — said after Kallistos finished speaking that the Metropolitan’s concession is not sufficient. Father Taft indicated that Roman and Eastern Christians still have much work remaining before reunification becomes feasible.

“It’s too early to decide what a united Church would look like,” said Father Taft. In a suggestion that might have provoked controversy in a more heavily Roman Catholic gathering, Father Taft called upon the Catholic Church to “modify its overly centralized government.”

“The possibility of a legitimate Petrine authority — which I as a Catholic in no way challenge — in no way justified every exercise of that authority,” he said.

Father Taft offered suggestions many other theologians or scholars might consider premature, including immediate permission to receive the sacraments from each other and acceptance of each other’s saints. He also said that “not all Orthodox Churches are mature and responsible enough to be dialogue partners.”

While the stated emphasis of the conference was on papal authority in relation to the Eastern Churches, Msgr. Michael Magee, professor of systematic theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, gave a talk on how the Eastern patriarchates developed.

“Because patriarchates developed everywhere and gradually and without orchestration, it’s really something that happened because of theological principles in the Church’s nature,” said Msgr. Magee, whose doctoral dissertation at the Gregorian University in Rome addressed the place of the patriarchates.

Patriarch of the West

One of the controversial topics that came up at the conference was Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 decision quietly to drop the papacy’s traditional title “Patriarch of the West.” While some speculated at the time that this was a conciliatory gesture aimed at accommodating Orthodox sensibilities, the move was nevertheless greeted with suspicion by some Orthodox Christians.

“For the Orthodox,” Kallistos explained, “the Church is three tiers — the position of the bishop in his diocese, regional patriarchs, and the universal primacy. Dropping the title ‘Patriarch of the West’ suggested to the Orthodox that regional primacy was no longer important [to Rome].”

One of the novel suggestions put forth at the conference came from Adam DeVille, a Greek Catholic, editor of Logos magazine and author of Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity. DeVille called for the Catholic Church to change her structure, dividing into six continental patriarchies under a “papal presidency.” DeVille, a professor in the philosophy and theology department at the University of St. Francis in Fort Wayne, Ind., said that this would show that the Catholic Church is willing to develop a more dispersed form of authority and could set the stage for reunion.

Msgr. Magee was skeptical.

“More important than the Latin Church’s changing her structure,” he said, “is to realize that the Latin Church is a particular Church in the universal Church.” Msgr. Magee suggested that the Pope would govern the Latin Church in “a more centralized way than he would in relation to the Eastern Churches.”

Although this was addressed on a highly theological level, some participants saw the issue in purely practical terms. Subdeacon Robert Cripps, a Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic from Ohio, whose Church is in full communion with Rome, said he “loves being in communion with the Holy Father.” But he recalled that, in the 1920s, the Holy See issued a decree calling for celibacy among Byzantine clergy. The so-called “celibacy wars” ended with the Byzantine retaining the right to a married clergy, said Cripps, who is married, but the controversy shows why some Orthodox insist that Roman authority be limited if they are to rejoin the Catholic Church.

“We accept the papacy. We love it, but we all need clarification,” Cripps said.

One inescapable conclusion of the conference: Much more clarity is going to be needed if Eastern and Western Christians are to resolve the division that began so long ago.

Comments

I am a Roman Catholic on process of canonical transfer to Melkite Catholic. One reason why i decide to choose Melkite Catholic is that the view that Eastern Catholic should retain and reserve its Eastern Heritage. Become in communion with Latin really doesn’t mean that we have to be Latin, Latinized or Hybrid Church.

Posted by Wade on Thursday, Jul 7, 2011 5:51 PM (EDT):

The answer to the questions really depends upon which Eastern Catholic Church your friend belongs to. For example: Fr. Abbot Nicholas, who is a member of the Romanian Catholic Church, probably holds a somewhat more latinized view of the issues discussed than would a Ukrainian Catholic or a Melkite Catholic. In fact the Melkite Church is probably the least theologically latinized of the Eastern Catholic Churches. You might look into getting a copy of Archbishop Elias Zoghby’s book “Ecumenical Reflections.”

Posted by Louise on Wednesday, Jul 6, 2011 9:27 PM (EDT):

Micah: I have been taught as an Eastern Catholic I may not say these dogmas are heretical, but that they are foreign to our Eastern theology history, outlook, tradition. These are not outside the faith but they are outside our theological patrimony. We did not, for example, experience the Reformation and Counter-reformation which the Western Latin Church experienced.

In the interview on YouTube “Eastern Catholic Theology” Part1 and Part 2 Father Abbot Nicholas of Holy Resurrection Romanian Catholic Monastery is asked questions related to this. By clicking on “... (more info)” you can see a list of the questions asked of the monks by Catherine Alexander, including “4. Do Eastern and Oriental Catholics have to affirm dogmas proclaimed by Rome?, 5. Do Eastern and Oriental Catholics have to accept all Roman Catholic teachings and theology?, 7. May they reject doctrine and dogmas proclaimed by Rome as incorrect or heretical, like papal supremacy?, 8. What about doctrines or dogmas proclaimed after the treaties of union, like the immaculate conception?,9. May Roman Catholics reject Eastern or Oriental Catholic theology as outside their theological patrimony, incorrect or heretical?”http://www.youtube.com/user/YourWordFromTheWise

“Who are Eastern Catholics? Parts 1 & 2 interview with Father Maximos may be helpful as well in answering the question you ask.

Posted by Michael on Wednesday, Jul 6, 2011 6:37 PM (EDT):

The term Original Sin and it’s underlying concept is based on a Western structured theology. The majority of Eastern Churches, especially the Byzantine, teach a sort of Original Concupiscence. The counterparts to the Oriental Orthodox (Syriac, Armenian, etc) Churches teach a sort of hybrid, both that something like Original Sin exists, but it is not inherited nor personal and that it is really Concupiscence but not just a leaning toward.

Posted by Micah on Wednesday, Jul 6, 2011 12:53 PM (EDT):

Question for the author, if she knows the answer, otherwise for anyone who might know. I have an acquaintance who is Eastern Catholic and denies Original Sin and a number of other dogmas developed in the West. He claims that when his church rejoined full communion with Rome, they were allowed not only to keep their rites (which is understandable), but also their own beliefs, including that some western dogmas were errors. How can we be in union with people who deny dogmas of our faith? I mean, if we are certain that they are true, and we have “divine and catholic faith” in them, then how can we say we are one in belief with those who do not accept those doctrines? It would be more understandable if it was a matter of having different perspectives and ways of describing the same truths, but this friend of mine, who has his MA in theology, says that his Church’s teachings on original sin and other matters are completely at odds with ours.

This subject has long fascinated me since I was a Protestant contemplating Catholicism and Orthodoxy. I am convinced that a solution is possible that does not require either side to simply recant, though both sides must be willing to repent. The main source of our division is not doctrinal disagreement, it is sin, above all pride, and lack of love. We are divided, and remain divided, because we fear men rather than God, and because we have grown comfortable and complacent in our entrenched positions. That’s not to deny the importance of the issues that divide us, but to say that with sufficient love, humility and grace the issues can and must be resolved.

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